


Rise

by sarahquinn



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Doctor/Patient, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-01 17:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahquinn/pseuds/sarahquinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jacquelyn: A 25 year old citizen of Gotham, she knows what is right and wrong but as new Gotham develops, her values are tested and the past seems to get in her way. Takes place during TDKR.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gotham for Vendetta

It has been three weeks that Bane has taken over Gotham. Three weeks that turned a city into hell.

I remember working at the diner almost a month ago. The football game was on. I wasn’t paying attention until I heard gasps from around the shop. I look at the TV and saw it all.

And then there was an explosion.

I awoke to screams and cries of the people of Gotham.

I wondered how long Gotham would be like this. It could go on for months, years, maybe even forever. Apparently, a citizen holds the trigger to blowing up Gotham. If I had that trigger…Gotham would have blown up on the first night.

I remember arriving home that night. I could hear the victory cries of my neighbors in the apartment building. I didn’t understand it. I pitied the rich; I pitied the people who once ‘owned’ Gotham. It was ‘ours’ now but I didn’t want it.

My roommate Melanie dragged me with her to this party a few nights after at this beautiful town house. I almost enjoyed it; I almost started to like this Gotham, till I saw a broken picture frame of a family who once owned this house.

Rich people are now forced to go in front of a judge and he chooses their fate. I think most of them are killed or exiled that leads to their death. But, I wasn’t too sure. Most of what I hear could be rumors.

I also hear that the judge is former Doctor Jonathan Crane and also known as the Scarecrow. I tremble just to know that he is free and running around Gotham. He may even scare me more than Bane himself.

About ten years ago I was a subject in his little test. I was fifteen then. My parents sent me to him. There wasn’t anything wrong with me but he insisted there was just so I can be a test subject. After about half a year with him, Batman finally put a stop to what he was doing. I spent another two after that and finally got let out. I was old enough to get my own apartment and job. I didn’t bother contacting my parents that I was out. I hated them. I hated Scarecrow more.

He was the reason why I ended up like this. I ended up being poor, working as a waitress at a crappy diner six days a week. And because of his tests on me, I developed into a nervous wreck. Maybe I should just let myself enjoy this Gotham.

Back to that beautiful town house. The picture was of my family. My parents had aged, gray hair, the wrinkles. They looked old and happy. My other three siblings, Mark, Victoria and Gavin, had grown up and looked good. All of them were older than me and I purposed they were now living on their own. Seems why my parents would have settled in a town house after living in a bigger house their whole lives. Judging by the picture, it was probably taken about a year ago.

I grew up with a rich family, maybe that’s why I felt bad for the rich but it also should be why I hated them. Snobby and stuck up, once their kid shows of what they think abnormality they automatically send them to a high paying therapist to deal with them.

I hated them, but that didn’t stop me from crying when I got home that night.

 

\---

“Can’t you believe that this city has been ours for almost a month?” Melanie is dancing around in the Gotham streets at night. Mel is a very eccentric kind of girl.

She is about two years older than I am and have been living together for about five years. We both worked at the diner in old Gotham. I never knew much about her or her parents. We both never told each other our stories. We both liked it that way.

“Mhm,” I mumble. I would rather much be at home but Mel prefers to be out all the time now. I would’ve stayed home by myself but I was terrified to be alone.

“Hey, are you girls looking to party?” This man says out of nowhere.

Mel excitedly turns around and nods. We follow him to this huge building. It was a penthouse suite.

A bunch of men and women were dancing and drinking.

“Jackie! Do you see who that is over there?” Mel says and runs over to hug her friend.

It was Darcy, a party girl just like Mel. I sigh and sit on one of the sofas. I look around and feel bile rising in my throat. This was someone’s place. They are probably dead by now.

I quickly get up. I need air. I take the elevator back down and head outside. My breathing becomes heavy. I can’t breathe and I feel like I’m going to vomit. I was having a panic attack. I feel my heart hammering in my chest as I walk away from the building. 


	2. Hero

I decided to walk home. I didn’t care about being alone. I’d rather that than stay at that place.

“Shut up!” I hear a man yell. It sounded like it was coming from an alley way.

I look down the dark alley to see three men pushing around a small boy.

The boy must have been no more than eight years old.

“What’s going on here?” I ask as I approach the three men.

They didn’t look happy.

One of the men said, “This boy stole from us.”

“What did he take?” I ask him.

“A piece of bread,” The other said.

The third added, “And for stealing, maybe cut off your hand?!”

The little boy sobbed, “Please.”

“Come on guys, it is just a little piece of bread…leave the boy alone,” I say. On the outside, I was brave but on the inside, I was afraid. I didn’t know why I was doing this.

“Oh yeah,” The first man says as he walks towards me. He adds, “What are you going to do about it?”

I didn’t know what to say next. All of a sudden a man comes out of nowhere.

He pulls out a gun and the three men run away.

I laugh, “For thugs, they sure are afraid of one gun.”

The man takes the boy and says, “For thugs, they must be new.”

He smiles at the boy, “Are you okay?”

The boy nods, “Thank you for saving us.”

“That was no problem, lets walk you back home,” The man says and lets the boy walk in front of him.

We both walk the boy home and when we arrive. It was a small run down place.

“Wait,” Says the man and hands him some food.

The boy thanks us both and runs off.

I let out a large sigh, “Thank you…what’s your name?”

“John Blake and what is yours?”

“Call me Jackie,” I turn left, almost on my street.

“Well, Jackie, you almost got yourself killed back there. You must know better not to mess with people around here these days,” He tells me.

“I know. It’s just, I couldn’t leave that boy there,” I tell John.

John stops and looks at me, “I know and that makes you a hero tonight.”

We both continue walking, “Gotham already has a hero, you.”

He smiles at that and mumbles, “Gotham needs another certain hero. But we just have to keep going.”

“Do you mean Batman? That guy can’t always be the one to save us,” I tell him.

He shrugs at that.

“This is where I live,” I point to the apartment building.

“Nice meeting you Jackie. Please be safe now,” John shakes my hand.

“It was nice meeting you too,” I smile at him.

\--

I awoke the next morning to my alarm clock. It was 8:30 in the morning. I kept forgetting to shut it off since there was no job anymore for me. I kept hoping that Gotham would return to normal.

“Shut that fucking thing off!” I hear Mel yell from her room.

I shut it off and made sure it wouldn’t happen again tomorrow morning. I try to fall back asleep, however, it was impossible. I go take a shower and start making breakfast.

Usually, there wasn’t much in our fridge, but now we were stalked on food. I start making bacon and eggs as Mel comes into the kitchen and starts ordering me around.

“Mhm, go get me some orange juice and pain killers,” She puts her head on the cool counter.

I sigh and hand it to her.

“Have a good night?” I raise my eyebrow at her, though she couldn’t see my face.

“Mhm,” She replies and takes her pills and gulps down her drink.

I hand her a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast.

She mumbles a “thanks.”

We sit their eating our food for about five minutes.

I say, “I guess you aren’t going to ask me what happened last night.”

She looks up confused, “What you mean?”

“What do you mean?” I ask her back.

She sighs and puts her fork down, “Okay, I can’t remember a fucking thing. I don’t even remember how the hell we got home.” She laughs.

“How we got home?” I pause as I take a sip of water. “You mean how you got home. I left way before you. In fact I was there for only less than ten minutes,” I tell her.

“You went home by yourself?” She says surprised.

“Yes,”

“Okay then. What happened?” She asks me.

I cleared my throat and told her what happened to me last night.

“Why didn’t you use those moves I taught you?” Mel asks as she gets up and starts doing punching moves.

I roll my eyes, “Mel, there were three guys.”

She shrugs and sits back down, “So, I’d take all three of them.”

We laugh together. For once it felt like everything was normal. I look outside and it reminded me that it wasn’t normal.


	3. Game

“Hello,” I hear Mel say into her cellphone.

I stop washing the dishes to listen in to her side of the conversation.

“Robby? Hey, how’s it going?” She walks around nervously rearranging our stuff in the living room. “Of course, I’m free.” She giggles.

I sigh and finish up washing the dishes.

She walks into the kitchen with a huge grin on her face.

“Guess what, Jack?” She sits on the counter picking at the leftovers of our diner.

I nod to show her that I was listening.

“Well, this guy from the party last week invited me to the court house and-” Mel starts to say.

I cut her off, “No, Melanie. Not that kangaroo court.” I let out a nervous laugh.

Mel gives me this weird look. “What side are you on?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked her.

She laughs, “Come on. Ever since Gotham has changed, for the better for us, you have been acting strangely. You’ve been acting like you feel sorry for them.”

I shake my head.

She continues, “How can you feel sorry for…for those people who never cared about us or our problems. They’re selfish, all of them.”

“It’s not like that,” I try to tell her.

She shakes her head, “I’m heading out.” She grabbed her coat and left.

When she left I tried watching some television. I couldn’t watch it. I was worried about Melanie. Scarecrow was there, she was in danger of him. I had to go see if she was okay at least.

I quickly grab my coat and head out.

\--

I took a deep breath as I arrive. I was disgusted by this place. How could anyone watch what went on in there?

I started to shake. It was like I could feel him. Like he knew I was going to be there.

I shake my head. He couldn’t possibly know, for all he knows, I could be dead.

I shakily walk up the steps. I jump back in surprise as the doors burst open. A pleading man between two big men burst out.

“No, please. I don’t want to die,”

I close my eyes and opened them again and he was gone.

As I walked in, I heard him.

I remember his voice; it was like it was etched in my brain along with his Scarecrow and Crane face.

“Exile!” His voice screamed. Then it was quickly followed by screams and cheers.

I scan over the people, trying to not look into Crane’s direction. All of a sudden, people were leaving. Was it already over?

“Fuck,” I whisper to myself and look over hundreds of people.

I couldn’t see Melanie anywhere.

I felt someone grab me and commanded, “Come with me.”

My body went cold. I started shaking but I was too scared to run so I followed the man.

He puts me in a room and closes the door behind him.

The room was dark except for a small light in the corner.

“I know you’re afraid of the dark, come stand by the light,”

I was shaking uncontrollably by now as I tried backing up towards the door.

Jonathan Crane appears in the light, “I wouldn’t try and run from me, if I were you.”

I swallowed a scream. There he was, healthy as ever. I shake my head and stammered, “W-what do you-you want from me?”

He sighs and tilts his head, “How are you alive?” He looked half annoyed but half interested.

“I don’t…W-what do you mean?” I turn around, more scared that all saw was darkness but I didn’t want to see his face.

“Come on Jacquelyn,” I hear him walk towards me.

I close my eyes.

“Come stand in the light,” I feel both his hands on me.

I shake my head and feel tears forming in my eyes.

“Please, just let me go,” I whimpered as pulls me closer to him.

He lets go of me. I opened my eyes and saw that I was under the light.

“Now,” He says and claps his hands together. “Tell me, as I remember before the Bat got me that night, I paid a visit to you. I tried out a higher dosage of my fear toxin, in hopes to kill you. How did you survive?” He waits for my answer as he looks at me, studying my body movements.

My brown curly hair must have been a mess by now. My hazel eyes were puffy and red from crying.

I sobbed, “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He huffs and, not satisfied by my answer, smacks me across the face. I made a small noise.

“Well, perhaps you are lucky. Bane hadn’t gotten me my supplies I need yet. So, I am fresh out of toxins,” He moves towards the window. The moonlight reflected off his face.

For a moment and only one shameful moment, I thought he looked painfully beautiful.

He stands there for what seems like forever, as I brought up the courage to ask, “Are you going to kill me?”

It shouldn’t be worse than living in Gotham.

He laughs and shakes his head, “Leave.”

I start to back away. Once I get to the door, I quickly rush out. Once I was out of there I ran home.

When I arrive home, Mel wasn’t there. I was so mad at her. It was all her fault; I wouldn’t have gone there if it wasn’t for her.

Crane wasn’t going to let me go that easy. He let me go, so I could put my guard down and trust him that he wasn’t going to kill me. He wanted a game.

I knew I wasn’t going to be his test subject anymore. I was going to be his game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be a flashback chapter explaining a few things.


	4. Therapy

Circa 2004  
“Mr. and Mrs. Pace,” My principle, Mr. Sanders greets kindly to my parents. He looks at me disapprovingly.  
“Well, you both know why we are here today. Jacquelyn seems to have caused a commotion yesterday in her History class, I as well as Mr. Harris, am very disappointed-” I cut him off.  
“I don’t care what that fucking pig feels,” I sharply say.  
My mother gasps, “Jacquelyn.”  
My father remains quiet as usual.  
“No, Mom. Why don’t you believe me? Mr. Harris is a pig who likes looking up girls skirts, and he...he kind of...” I start to tell her again.  
Mr. Sanders calmly chuckles to himself, “What, Jacquelyn? Think before you start making acquisitions about Mr. Harris.” He looks over at my parents, “Tyler Harris has been with us for twenty years, he has a clean record and he comes from the most prestigious schools in the world, we are very lucky to have him here.”  
Both my parents look ashamed.  
“Don’t worry, a lot of girls her age like to tell lies about stuff like that and in reality happen to be very promiscuous themselves,” He explains to them.  
I look at him in disbelieve, “Mom, that’s not true…Dad?” My Dad doesn’t look at me.  
He ignores my statement, “She also happens to be violent, resulting in yesterday’s accident. Stabbing a teacher in the hand with a pencil is not a good thing to do, Jacquelyn.”  
My Mother starts to cry, “What is there to do?”  
He hands her Kleenex, “The best thing to do is bring her to a psychologist. I know the best one in the city, but it is costly.”  
My Dad finally says, “Money is not a problem.”  
And that concluded the meeting.  
\--  
“Jacquelyn Pace?” The secretary at Arkham addresses me.  
I stand up from my seat and walk over to her. Picking up a file, she gets up and walks me to a room. I start to feel nervous.  
She knocks on the door and a few seconds later there was a muffled voice behind the door.  
“Come in,” I hear a man say.  
She opens the door and we both walk in.  
My psychologist looked very young and his eyes…okay not going to have a crush on my psychologist!  
I had to admit though, he looked good.  
The secretary hands him the file and closing the door behind her, she leaves.  
The psychologist looks over the file and casually looks over at me. He then closes it and takes his glasses off.  
“Take a seat,” He motions over to a seat in front of his desk.  
I walk over to it and take my bag off my shoulders.  
“It’s nice to meet you, Jacquelyn. My name is Jonathan Crane,” With a smile, Dr. Crane shakes my hand.  
I smile back.  
“So, about the incident at school,” He leans in and he had a look of concern.  
I relax more; he seemed like a trust worthy person. He probably could help me and actually listen, he was a psychologist after all.  
He catches my eye, “I want you to tell me your point of view.”  
I clear my throat, “Well, Mr. Harris…he does have a reputation with the other students for looking at the girls. But, last week-when the other students were getting out, he stopped me and told me if I needed extra help and his hand…” I look down.  
I look back at Dr. Crane the look of concern still on his face, “His hand went to different places, inappropriate places. I had my hand on the pencil.”  
His hand caressed my thigh as mine gripped the pencil almost breaking it.  
“Could you be more specific on those places, Jacquelyn?” His voice sounded soft, empathetic.  
I couldn’t look at him anymore.  
“His hand touched my thigh, rubbing it and stuff,” I sniffed, tears running down my face.  
“Could I tell you something? It wasn’t the first time. I was too scared to tell my Mom, she didn’t believe me…his hand always went there. I didn’t like it, it made me feel uncomfortable,” Everything was a blur now, but the past was crystal clear. I felt vulnerable with Dr. Crane but he was going to help me.  
“Do you ever feel like hurting yourself?” He asks me.  
I shrug, “Not really.”  
He takes note of something.  
“Do you ever think of suicide?” He asks another question, pen poised to the paper.  
I shrug again, “No, but when they didn’t believe, I thought of it-once though. I don’t think I’d ever do that!”  
He nods and takes another note. He leans towards his phone and calls his secretary, “Bring in Mr. and Mrs. Pace.”  
My parents come in and take a seat next to me. My Mom was already on the verge of tears.  
“I’m sorry to say that I need Jacquelyn to stay a few weeks here-”  
I cut him off, “What?”  
“Jacquelyn! Don’t interrupt,” My mother yells.  
He continues, “I think it would be best. She is suicidal and may harm herself.”  
I look at Dr. Crane in disbelief.  
My mom is crying and my dad, he is emotionless.  
“She also has Histrionic Personality Disorder and it needs immediate treatment,” Dr. Crane says.  
“What, you can’t possibly get that out of me in twenty minutes,” I yell at him.  
“Jacquelyn!” My mother yells back.  
He smiles and then he shows that look of concern again. It looked different now, twisted, and more sinister.


	5. Chapter 5

I awake the next morning to the smell of fresh coffee. I leave my room to see Mel sitting on the counter, coffee mug in hand. She was giggling. I look around and I saw a man who looked vaguely familiar.  
“Oh, you're awake,” Mel smiled at me. She gets downs and takes out another mug and makes coffee.  
She hands it to me and tells me, “This is Barsad; I met him at the rally last night. Barsad, this is the Jacquelyn I was talking about.”  
“Hi,” I look over at him again.   
She sees the look on my face and says quickly, “You don’t know him. But, you did see him before.” She lets out a small laugh. “He works for Bane,”  
“Oh,” I make an ‘O’ face.  
He comes over to me and shakes my hand, “Nice to meet you.” He goes over to kiss Mel on the lips and ads, “I got to go. Boss doesn’t usually give a lot free time.”   
When he left, I marched over to Mel. I yell, “Are you crazy?”  
She just huffed and went into the bathroom and closed the door.   
I let out a sigh. Instead of worrying about myself, I now have to worry about Mel, too.  
Twenty minutes later Mel comes out with only a towel on, her hair wet.  
“I’m seeing him again tonight,” She explains and walks into her bedroom. She adds, “You can come too if you want.”  
I walk into her room as she sets bunch of-stolen-clothes on her bed.   
She sighs, “What should I wear?”  
I grunted, “Where are you going?”  
She laughs, “Are you my mother now.”  
I roll my eyes at her.  
“I told you, you can come. We’re going to this party-a special party. Not a lot of people could go to it,” She smiles as she decides on a beautiful blue expensive dress.   
This didn’t sound safe at all. I didn’t trust Barsad at all. I was still shaken up from what happened last night, but, I couldn’t let her go there alone.   
She saw how hesitant I was, “Come on Jack, it’ll be fun.”  
Oh yes, fun.  
\--  
The party was located at this club downtown. I’ve never been here before Bane’s Gotham.   
When we arrive the man at the door took our coats. Mel had convinced me to wear a halter red dress. It was nice and I merely enjoyed in for a good ten minutes.  
Once we were fully in, Mel murmured a ‘be right back’ and was off. I sighed, I specifically told her not to do this.  
I casually look around when I see him. How was he here? Why was he here? I felt cold and wished I still had my jacket.   
I breathed out in relief when I saw Mel with Barsad and a tall-okay that was Bane.  
Oh my God, was he huge in person.  
“Hey, this is Bane. Bane, this is Jacquelyn,” Mel motioned over at me.  
I wanted to leave. I look back and saw he was gone. I started to internally panic.  
Mel looked like she was frightened by Bane. I didn’t blame her, if I wasn’t so wrapped up with Crane I would be the same.   
“Jacquelyn…” Bane says.  
I just nod and look around for Crane.   
At the corner of my eye I see Mel smirk over at Barsad and they both excused themselves.   
I would have said something, but again, I was too busy trying to see him over the crowds. Well, no need to stay in this spot. I start to walk when Bane grabs me.  
“Uh, hi,” I say.  
“You don’t seem intimidated by me. It seems that you're preoccupied by something else. Someone else,” He says and behind the mask I couldn’t tell if that was a joke or not.  
I just chuckle and shrug.   
With no expression on his face, he says, “Nice meeting you.”   
I smile but it dropped once he was gone. That guy was awkward.  
Back to Crane I scan over the crowd and saw a shadow go into the back room.   
I bit my lip. “Fuck it,” I mumble. I go over to the back to where I thought I had seen him.  
I open the door to see two people making out. I shut it right away.  
I sigh in relief and walk away. When I do, someone pushes me into another room. It was dark but I could tell it was a closet since it was small.  
I start to panic.   
“Shh, calm down,” I hear him whisper in my ear.  
He presses my back against his front and gripped my waist.   
I wanted to scream but nothing came out.  
He chuckles softly into my ear, “I love it when you’re like this. You're so vulnerable. It’s hot.”


	6. Chapter 06

“Do you fear me?” His body shakes at the word.  
I whimpered in response as one of his hands trail down my front.  
He laughs, “I want to know why it is that you always show up to where I am. I don’t even have to find you. You always come crawling back to me.”  
I shudder. I am too afraid to respond to his words.  
I hear a knock at the door.   
It was Barsad and Mel. I was glad to see them.  
But, Mel took this the wrong way. Crane had his hands everywhere and was close to me. My face must have been flushed.  
Mel starts to laugh. Barsad looks confused.   
“Well, this one is taken,” Mel says as she starts to leave.  
I quickly get out and go after her.  
Mel says, “Don’t worry about it. Live a little.”  
I shake my head.  
“I’m just a little mad though. You were saying how my boyfriend is bad…”She starts to say.  
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” I look over at Barsad and he didn’t look amused. He looked angry.  
I added, “I’m also not with him.” I motioned behind me where I expected Crane to be.  
Mel rolls her eyes, “Whatever, I’m really tired of you acting like you’re a saint. You’re such a hypocrite.”   
She leaves with Barsad.  
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. I look back and saw Crane still where I thought he’d be, grinning like an idiot.  
I knew I wasn’t a saint but I for sure knew I wasn’t a hypocrite. I’ll show her.  
I shove Crane back in the closet. I could feel my anger boil inside me.  
“Wipe that stupid grin off your face,” I tell him as I close the door, this time locking it.  
Crane looked shocked but somewhat amused.   
I couldn’t help it. What I was feeling, anger, confusion, fear, all of it wanted him.  
I pulled him too me and kissed him. He kisses me back and pulls me closer to him.   
I moan as his hands trail down my body. He stops and loosens his tie. I unzip my dress and let it fall to the floor.   
He looks over my body and grins. By the next time I look over at him, he has all his clothes off.   
What was I doing? I was crazy but I was enjoying every moment of this. I also haven’t exactly been with a lot of guys before.  
He takes off the rest of mine and lifts me up. I automatically wrap my legs around him.  
“Jonathan,” I pleaded. It is the first time I say his first name out loud.  
“Are you afraid?” He looks into my eyes.  
I shiver and nod my head.   
He kisses me again and then my neck leaving love bites. He slowly enters me. I whimpered and dug my nails in his back.  
He starts slow then quickens his pace.   
He turns me around so I’m leaning over a desk. He pounds harder and I feel myself coming close.  
I shut my eyes tightly, I reopen them to see stars around the darken room.  
“You like that?” Crane grunts into my ear.  
“Uh-huh,” Was all I could say.  
Crane turns me around so that I was now on my back. He thrusts into me a few more times as I came.   
“Jon,” My head falls back.   
He is at my neck again. He came shortly after and automatically gets out of me.  
I whimper at the sudden withdraw and I suddenly felt empty again.  
He gets dressed and without a word, leaves.  
I slowly get up and get dressed.   
“Shit,” I mutter to myself when I can’t find my underwear.  
I felt dirty as ever as I shamefully got out of the closet.   
I went to clean myself up in the bathroom. After, I went over to where the coat check was and got my jacket.   
\--  
When I got home it was a little over 2:30 AM and Mel was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t mad at her anymore but that didn’t stop me from disliking Barsad. I didn’t trust him. I hope she was okay and I really hoped she was going to come back home.   
I head to the bathroom to take a shower and then slept.  
\--  
I awoke to the sound of knocking at my door. It couldn’t have been Mel because she had a key.  
Yes, I still locked my doors. Mel always insists on leaving it unlocked because “It belongs to everyone,” or whatever. I didn’t trust anybody.  
I get up and wrap a sweater around me. I head to the door and look in the peep hole, there was no one there.  
I open the door to see a brown envelope. I pick it up and went back into the apartment.  
I look inside to see red material. When it was out I noticed it was my panties from last night. I frown and set them aside. I look back inside the envelope to see a sheet of paper. I take it out.  
It read: Sorry, I accidently took these last night.  
I know where your friend is and no she is not going back to your apartment. If you want to know where she is you will have to earn it from me.  
But just so you know, I am not easily impressed.  
~Come find me.  
-J.C  
Great, I didn’t have time to play his games. I didn’t believe he knew where Mel was, but then again how did he know she wasn’t at the apartment. Well, he probably just assumed because of the fight. But, how did he even know where I lived? Did he know this whole time? Did he know before all this? He did escape a few times before Bane’s Gotham.   
I had to ‘earn’ it from him. I shuddered at the thought. Deep down though, I secretly thought that comment was hot, even know he wasn’t even specific on it.  
A million scenarios flashed through my mind. I groaned and put my head in my hands. He was a sick man and I had experienced that through my days at Arkham. It didn’t stop me from wanting him though.   
‘You’re sick,’ I told myself as I got up and went to put new clothes on.  
‘I should just check the court house,’ I say to myself and left the apartment.  
I start to head towards the court when I see that John Blake guy walking aimlessly around the streets and putting something down the sewers.  
“Uhm, hi,” I say.  
He gets up quickly and looks around, “Hey, Jackie right?”   
“Yup,” I smile. “What you doing, there?”  
“Oh, that?” He looks nervous. “Nothing really, I got to go I’ll catch you later?”  
He leaves and goes into the alleys.   
I shrug and kept walking.  
When I arrived at the court it was completely empty. I look around and spotted the door I went into the other day. It was also empty. I frown. Eventually I gave up and went home. Crane could wait another day.


	7. Chapter 07

It was a few days later when I went back to the court house. I stayed home for the past three days thinking of what I was going to do.  
There wasn’t any other way so I decided to just go back and if he was there…  
“No, please,” I hear a voice of a young man.   
I looked the other way and went inside. It was over and people were heading out. I saw Crane go into a room and I quickly followed.  
I didn’t see him at first, the room was dark.  
“Finally,” He comes up from behind me.  
I turned around and saw that he was close to me. Too close. I backed up a bit.   
“Crane, where is she?” I demanded.  
He laughs, “No hug?”  
I roll my eyes and go over to where the only light was coming from. I look out the window; it was starting to get cold.  
I couldn’t face him right now. Not since the other night.  
“I really don’t want to play games right now. Just tell me where she is,” I demanded again from him.  
“Why do you care? She isn’t kidnapped or anything like that. She’s with Barsad willingly,” I feel him walk closer to me.  
I say, “I care because she’s all I have. She’s the only person in my whole life that cared about me. She took me in when I left Arkham.”  
I shudder as I remembered the cold streets of Gotham.  
“Let me guess, you told her your sob story and she took you under her wing?” He asks.  
“Not exactly,” I answer. In fact, I didn’t tell her anything about my experience at Arkham, or my relationship with my family. She guessed about stuff but that was about it. This was also the same with her. I didn’t know much about her, just had guessed she also didn’t have a good relationship with her parents.  
He comes up behind me and grabs onto my waist and pulls me closer to him.  
I gasped, “I just came here for Mel and that is it.”  
He softly chuckles in my ear and I shudder.  
“We know that’s not true,” He moves to my neck and placed small kisses.   
I closed my eyes and moaned. His hands went to my pants and started to undo them.  
I snapped, “No.” I pushed him away and grabbed onto anything I could. I felt a pipe.  
“Just tell me where she is and I’ll be on my way,” I threatened him with a pipe. I looked so pathetic.  
He laughs and shakes his head. He walks over to a desk and takes out a paper and pen. He scribbles something and walks over to me. I raise the pipe. He rolls his eyes at this and holds out the paper. I take it and see that there is an address on it.  
“This is where she is?” I question.  
He goes back over to his desk, “Yes.”   
He sits down and opens the lamp desk. He takes out folders and starts reading the papers inside. It seemed he completely forgotten I was there.  
It was a few moments until he looked up at me, “Are you expecting a good bye or something?”  
I slowly shake my head and stormed out of the room. It was when I was outside I remembered I still had the pipe clutched in my hand. I dropped it and went to where Crane said Mel was staying.  
\---  
When I arrived at the address it was an abandon warehouse. I go up to the door and knock where two men opened the door. They looked surprised and looked unsure whether to shoot me or not.  
Luckily they didn’t choose when I hear Mel.  
“How did you find me?” She asks and we walked together away from the warehouse. She doesn’t look mad at me but she also doesn’t look like she was happy to see me.  
“Uhm, someone from the courthouse, I overheard a conversation saying about this place and Barsad and where else would you be?” I lie, hoping she wouldn’t catch it.  
“Oh,” She says. She looks back over to where the warehouse was, “You’re lucky I was here, these men would’ve shot you.”  
“Sorry, I just want you back home.” I tell her, not looking directly at her.  
She sighs, “I don’t think I can, I’m helping them out with stuff, transporting this thing-they are very limited on what they tell me. I usually drive trucks and Barsad is teaching me how to fight. You should totally learn how to fight. Maybe they will have a job for you…”  
I stopped listening after that. I couldn’t help these people, they were clearly bad.   
“Come on,” She says with a pleading look.   
I sigh, “Fine.”  
She looks happy and brings me inside. I had a plan and that plan was to bring this place down. I was going to try and find that John Blake guy. If I was inside what was going on, I could certainly tell him the information he needed. He seemed to be the guy to go to and trust.  
As I was thinking of where to find him, Mel stops walking and were face to face with Barsad.   
He doesn’t look happy to see me, “What is she doing here?”  
She goes up to him and kisses him. She motions to me and tells him, “She wants a job and you should get one of your guys to teach her how to fight. I want my girl protected.”  
He sighs and rolls his eyes, “Okay.” He looks over at another guy and tells him about me working here. He looks back at Mel, “Be careful. I have to go see Bane.” He kisses her again. He looks at me, “And Crane…”  
I stare at him right back.   
“How did you find us anyways?” He asks with an eyebrow raised.  
“I over-heard a conversation at the courthouse…” I tell him what I told Mel before.  
He just nods and then takes off.  
Mel walks over to some crates and grabs a clipboard. She motions me to walk with her between the aisles. She looks and checks off some stuff on the chart.  
“So, why were you with that judge?” She asks looking around the aisles.   
“We were just talking…” I don’t look at her.  
She sighs, “Look.” She stops and makes me look at her. “I’m not trying to start anything and if you did, that’s your business, but it totally looked like it.”  
I groaned and turned away from her, “Okay, we did but it isn't going to happen again.”   
And for some reason I just knew that wasn't true.


	8. Chapter 08

2004  
It was a warm Monday morning when I was finally led to Dr. Crane’s office again.  
“How was your first weekend here at Arkham?” He asks from his desk. He doesn’t look up at me as he asks this.   
I don’t answer.  
“What are you afraid of? What are your fears?”  
“I hate you,” my voice is cracks and then I realised that I’ve haven’t spoken since our last meeting with my parents.  
He finally looks up at me and takes his glasses off. He sighs deeply and stares straight at me. “Ms. Pace, do you know that hate is a very strong word to use?”  
I roll my eyes at him. Who does this nut job think he is?  
He gives me this glare that was so unexplainable.   
Clearing his throat he looks through a folder and starts to read it.   
“I’m going to skip everything and go straight to the test then,” He casually says.   
I don’t respond to that.  
“It says here you have no medical condition, that’s great. May you follow me?” He gets up from his desk and motions me to the back.  
As we enter the next room I see it is a hallway with an elevator around the corner. When we enter the elevator, Dr. Crane swipes his access card and enters a code. The elevator closes and goes down.  
When we walk out of the elevator I look to my surroundings and see that it was an empty wing of Arkham. It was old and run down with plastic covering most walls and entry ways to other rooms.  
“The crazies start freaking out at this point,” He tells me as we walk into a room.  
I had no idea what he was going on about. The room we entered actually looked comfy. It had a long sofa in the middle with carpet and an armchair slightly in front to the side of the sofa.  
“Sit or lie down on the couch,” He says.  
I chose to lie down. As I looked at the ceiling I saw speakers around the room. I frowned, ‘why?’  
“The crazies go crazy over this,” I hear him say and I look over at him.  
He is standing by the door still and is holding what looked like a potato sac in his right hand. In his left I saw him holding a pad of paper and pen.   
“What is it?” I ask.  
“Jacquelyn, would you like to see my mask?” He puts the sac over his head.   
“Dr. Crane, what’s going on?” I ask him as I start to get up.  
He presses a button and I hear hissing sounds and I look up to see smoke coming out of the ‘speakers’.   
“Dr. Crane isn’t in now. It’s Scarecrow,”  
I scream.  
\--  
Its dark in the room and I can hardly see anything. On the other hand, I felt things crawling on my body. I tried to wipe it off.   
I finally see Dr. Cra-Scarecrow and he’s sitting on the arm chair.   
I try to call out to him but nothing was coming out.  
His mouth opens as if to say something but all that came out was spiders. It looked like millions of them were coming out of his mouth. I look down to see that they were crawling on me. I felt them going in my ears, my mouth and even my eyes. My throat felt coarse and raw. I felt thirsty. I felt blood erupt from my throat and I start gasping and coughing.   
\--  
I think it was my own screaming that brought me back to reality. I stopped screaming and looked around. I was still in the room and scarecrow was still on the armchair. He looked like he was taking notes. Was he not fazed by my screaming at all? How long was I actually screaming for?  
Scarecrow takes off the mask and its Dr. Crane again.  
“What did you see?” He asks me.  
Once my heavy breathing stopped I tried to talk but only, “Fu...you” came out. My throat ached.   
He just nods and leads me out the room. I almost stumble over and fall a few times but he catches me. When we reach his office he places me back on a chair. He goes over to his counter and gets a tall class of water.  
He walks over to me and I open my mouth and try to grab it but he shakes his head.  
“This is how it’s going to work, I give you the water and you drink. Then you will tell me all of what you saw in great detail. Okay?” He explains and hands it over but it’s not until I nod he lets me take it.  
I drank the water in seconds and asked for more. He gives me another glass and I am slow with it this time. I finally explain to him what I saw and he writes it down in his notes only nodding a few times.  
“What is this anyways? You owe me an explanation,” I tell him.   
“You don’t need to know,” Was all he said.  
I was just more worried of when Scarecrow was coming back.   
He scared me more than Crane himself.


End file.
